''Ghost in the Machine'' is a 1993 American

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

directed by

Rachel Talalay Rachel Talalay (born July 16, 1958) is an American filmmaker and producer best known for directing films such as ''Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare'' (1991), ''Ghost in the Machine (film), Ghost in the Machine'' (1993), and ''Tank Girl (film), ...

and released by

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...

about a deceased serial killer with artificial computer intelligence.

Plot

While working at a computer store in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

serial killer A serial killer (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separat ...

Karl Hochman, known as "The Address Book Killer" due to habitually stealing address books and choosing his victims from them, obtains the address book of Terry Munroe, a customer, as the store manager uses the book to demonstrate a handheld scanner. He copies a page of her address book into a computer. On a rainy night while heading home, Karl hurriedly drives into an oncoming lane and swerves to miss a truck. This causes his car to go off the road into a cemetery, all while he laughs maniacally. In the emergency room, he is put into an

MRI Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to generate pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes inside the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and rad ...

machine. A surge from an

electrical storm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustics, acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorm ...

causes his soul to be transferred into a computer. Now, as a network-based entity, Karl continues to plot his killing spree using various objects connected to the

electrical grid An electrical grid (or electricity network) is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids consist of power stations, electrical substations to step voltage up or down, electric power tran ...

and

computer network A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...

s. Karl accesses the scanned page from Terry's address book and begins to kill everyone listed on the page. Her boss, Frank Mallory, becomes the first victim when his microwave oven begins irradiating the entire kitchen. Another friend, Elliot Miller, gets burned to death when a hand dryer turns into a

flamethrower A flamethrower is a ranged incendiary device designed to project a controllable jet of fire. First deployed by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century AD, flamethrowers saw use in modern times during World War I, and more widely in World W ...

. Later on, babysitter Carol Maibaum is hired to look after Terry's son Josh and his best friend Frazer. However, Carol becomes the third victim; she is electrocuted from an exposed electrical cord on the kitchen floor when the dishwasher explodes and floods the kitchen. The police do not believe the theory that Karl is on a killing spree after his death, but Josh realizes the order of the killings parallels a list of contacts from Terry's address book. Terry, along with noted

computer hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...

Bram Walker, unplugs everything in her house. The police then receive anonymous reports of an armed robbery, a hostage situation, domestic violence, and a murder in progress, all at Terry's house. The police open fire on the home after mistaking an exploding pole transformer for gunfire. After realizing their mistake, they cease fire. Terry's mother goes into shock during the siege and is transported to the hospital for recovery. Aided by Bram and Josh, Bram manages to defeat Karl by introducing a

computer virus A computer virus is a type of malware that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and Code injection, inserting its own Computer language, code into those programs. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas ...

that traps him in a physics laboratory. They activate an atom smasher located in the laboratory, which draws Karl in and destroys him with its extremely powerful magnetic field. As the film ends, Bram tells Terry to turn off a

heart rate monitor A heart rate monitor (HRM) is a personal monitoring device that allows one to measure/display heart rate in real time or record the heart rate for later study. It is largely used to gather heart rate data while performing various types of ph ...

in an ambulance, causing the screen to fade to black.

Cast

* Karen Allen as Terry Munroe * Chris Mulkey as Bram Walker * Ted Marcoux as Karl Hochman *

Wil Horneff William Samuel Horneff (born June 12, 1979) is an Americans, American former child actor and martial artist who won two Young Artist Awards from three nominations. After leaving his career as an actor, Horneff opened Training Grounds Jiu-Jitsu ...

as Josh Munroe *

Jessica Walter Jessica Ann Walter (January 31, 1941 – March 24, 2021) was an American actress who appeared in more than 170 film, stage, and television productions. In films, she was best known for her role as a psychotic and obsessed fan of a local disc ...

as Elaine Spencer * Brandon Adams as Frazer *

Rick Ducommun Richard Ducommun (July 3, 1952 – June 12, 2015) was a Canadian actor known for his supporting turns in various films, most prominently ''Die Hard'' (1988) and ''Groundhog Day'' (1993). Career One of his earliest television appearances was on ...

as Phil Stewart * Jack Laufer as Elliott Miller * Shevonne Durkin as Carol Maibaum * Richard McKenzie as Frank Mallory * Nancy Fish as Karl's Landlord *

Richard Schiff Richard Schiff (born May 27, 1955) is an American actor. He is best known for playing Toby Ziegler on ''The West Wing'', a role for which he received an Emmy Award. Schiff made his television directorial debut with ''The West Wing'', directing an ...

as Scanner Technician

Production

In 1987, writers William Davies and William Osborne first got the idea for ''Ghost in the Machine'' when reading about a piece of computer software called Skeleton Key, which allowed users to invade other computer networks and retrieve all data within them without owners knowing anything about it, and crafted a premise wherein a serial killer was absorbed into a computer and now possessed those same abilities. Due to the release of Wes Craven's '' Shocker'',

briefly put the film in Turnaround due to perceived similarities between the two films, however the film resumed development at Fox following uncredited re-writes by

Todd Graff Todd Graff (born October 22, 1959) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is best known for writing and directing the musical comedy films ''Camp'' (2003), for which he was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, '' Band ...

. The film's special effects were provided by Video Image under the direction of special effects supervisor Richard Hollander. In order to create evolutionary images of the electronic serial killer's computerized environment, at the suggestion of director

, Hollander and his group decided to digitally manipulate real-life data taken from

body scans. Ted Marcoux, who plays Killer Karl, was scanned at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

. The film was shot over the course of 51 days in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, which doubled for the film's

setting.

Release and reception

''Ghost in the Machine'' had initially been slated for release in August 1993, but to avoid competition with ''

Jurassic Park ''Jurassic Park'', later referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton, centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of De-extinction#Cloning, cloned dinosaurs. It bega ...

'' and other major fall releases, its release was delayed until December. During its opening weekend, ''Ghost in the Machine'' grossed $1,854,431 and ranked at no. 10. By the end of its run, it had grossed a domestic total of $5,086,909, failing to recoup its $12 million budget. On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film has a rating of 10% based on 10 reviews, with an average rating of 3.4/10.

Home video

''Ghost in the Machine'' was released on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

and

LaserDisc LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. It was developed by Philips, Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer, and the movie studio MCA Inc., MCA. The format was initially marketed in the United State ...

on May 25, 1994, and on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

on January 17, 2006.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ghost In The Machine (Film) 1993 films 1993 action films 1993 horror films 1993 science fiction films 1990s action horror films 1990s American films 1990s English-language films 1990s ghost films 1993 science fiction action films 1990s science fiction horror films 1990s serial killer films 1990s slasher films 20th Century Fox films American action horror films American ghost films American science fiction action films American science fiction horror films American serial killer films American slasher films Cyberpunk films Films directed by Rachel Talalay Films scored by Graeme Revell Films set in Cleveland Films shot in Los Angeles Films with screenplays by William Davies Techno-thriller films Films with screenplays by William Osborne (writer) English-language action horror films English-language science fiction horror films English-language science fiction action films English-language crime films